Amygdala Memory Enhancement
For patients and families
In plain language
An automatic summary of structured registry data. It is an orientation aid, not a substitute for the official protocol or a physician assessment.
- What is being studied
- The protocol lists: Intracranial Stimulation.
- Who it may be relevant to
- Registry conditions: Brain Diseases, Epilepsy, Memory Disorders, Traumatic Brain Injury. Basic parameters: 18 years — 75 years · All.
- What needs checking
- Age, condition and sex are only basic indicators. Prior treatment, laboratory values and other mandatory requirements appear in the eligibility criteria below.
- Where it takes place
- United States
- Next step
- Save the trial, show it to the treating physician, and confirm current recruitment with the study center. Costs, documents and travel →
Unsure about the terms? Read our patient guide →
Official title
Mechanisms of Amygdala-Mediated Memory Enhancement in Humans
Overview
The objective is to understand how amygdala activation affects other medial temporal lobe structures to prioritize long-term memories. The project is relevant to disorders of memory and to disorders involving affect and memory, including traumatic brain injury and post-traumatic stress disorder.
Detailed description
Direct electrical stimulation (DES) of the basolateral complex of the amygdala (BLA) can improve declarative memory, reflecting the role of the BLA in modulating memory processes in medial temporal lobe (MTL) regions as a function of emotional arousal. Thus, DES can reveal mechanisms of BLA-mediated memory enhancement relevant to human mental health and disease. DES of the BLA can be used to interrogate the function of memory circuits, especially how neuronal oscillations in the MTL support declarative memory. First, BLA is hypothesized to wield the capacity to prioritize long-term retention of information initially encountered adjacent in time over days and weeks after encoding. Second, the BLA preferentially projects to anterior MTL regions and thus is hypothesized to preferentially modulate memory processes in those anatomic regions, processes thought to support memory for non-spatial items more so than memory for spatial locations. Third, although emotional arousal, amygdala activity, MTL activity, and memory performance are typically correlated, the investigators hypothesize that DES will reveal that BLA outputs to other MTL regions cause improved memory performance by directly eliciting pro-memory oscillatory states in those networks. The expected outcomes represent a significant advancement for the basic science of normal memory function and significant movement towards novel therapeutics designed to emulate endogenous mechanisms of memory enhancement.
Interventions
- Device Intracranial Stimulation
Electrodes localized to the BLA will be stimulated with either active-BLAES (0.5-3.5 mA, theta-modulated gamma burst) electrical stimulation for a 1-sec duration immediately following item image presentation or sham-BLAES (zero-amplitude). At later stages of the project, stimulation parameters and timing will be varied and triggered not at random, but by real-time closed-loop analysis of memory biomarkers in the medial temporal lobe.
Primary outcome measures
- Free recall memory discriminability index (proportion recalled) [Time frame: 5 years]
- Recognition memory discriminability index (proportion recalled) [Time frame: 5 years]
Secondary outcome measures (5)
- Location of single pulse evoked potential (SPEP) response to amygdala stimulation [Time frame: 5 years]
- Amplitude of SPEP response to amygdala stimulation [Time frame: 5 years]
- Latency of SPEP response to amygdala stimulation [Time frame: 5 years]
- Local field potential (LFP) of good memory state [Time frame: 5 years]
- LFP of bad memory state [Time frame: 5 years]
Eligibility criteria
Inclusion criteria
- Must be able to understand and speak English.
- Able to provide informed consent.
- Diagnosed with epilepsy.
- Scheduled to undergo long-term intra-cranial video monitoring for seizure onset localization.
- Must be implanted with intracranial depth electrodes to the left or right amygdala, hippocampus, and parahippocampal/perirhinal cortices.
Exclusion criteria
- Unable to understand and speak English.
- Unable to provide informed consent.
- Not diagnosed with epilepsy.
Criteria are shown verbatim from the registry (in English). Final eligibility is always assessed by the study center.
Healthy volunteers: No
Study design
- Allocation
- N/A
- Model
- Single group
- Masking
- Open label
- Primary purpose
- Treatment
Study locations
United States · 1 center
- Washington University School of Medicine — St Louis
Publications
- Inman CS, Manns JR, Bijanki KR, Bass DI, Hamann S, Drane DL, Fasano RE, Kovach CK, Gross RE, Willie JT. Direct electrical stimulation of the amygdala enhances declarative memory in humans. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2018 Jan 2;115(1):98-103. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1714058114. Epub 2017 Dec 18. PMID 29255054
- Manns JR, Bass DI. The amygdala and prioritization of declarative memories. Curr Dir Psychol Sci. 2016 Aug;25(4):261-265. doi: 10.1177/0963721416654456. PMID 27721578
- Bass DI, Manns JR. Memory-enhancing amygdala stimulation elicits gamma synchrony in the hippocampus. Behav Neurosci. 2015 Jun;129(3):244-56. doi: 10.1037/bne0000052. PMID 26030426
- Bass DI, Nizam ZG, Partain KN, Wang A, Manns JR. Amygdala-mediated enhancement of memory for specific events depends on the hippocampus. Neurobiol Learn Mem. 2014 Jan;107:37-41. doi: 10.1016/j.nlm.2013.10.020. Epub 2013 Nov 8. PMID 24211699
- Bass DI, Partain KN, Manns JR. Event-specific enhancement of memory via brief electrical stimulation to the basolateral complex of the amygdala in rats. Behav Neurosci. 2012 Feb;126(1):204-8. doi: 10.1037/a0026462. Epub 2011 Dec 5. PMID 22141467
Identifiers
NCT: NCT05065450 · 202104033